by James Jinks
The brief Coote produced for Mountbatten captured Rickover’s achievements as well as his complex character:
The story of the building of Nautilus reveals a restless, lonely and ruthless man, working around the clock to get the boat to sea, regardless of opposition. It is said that he stoops to quite unethical methods if the end justifies the means – as they always have in his book. For example, he would play off one firm or department against another by attributing quite untrue statements to each other.
It is difficult to assess Admiral Rickover’s true importance to today. One must presume that, by virtue of continuing to hold the chief responsibility for the development of naval reactors both in the Bureau of Ships and the AEC, he is now engaged in implementing the USN’s recently declared policy to put nuclear propulsion into all ships which will be employed in offensive roles, including CVAs [aircraft carriers] and their escorts.
But there are many who are eager to point out that his mission was accomplished with the launching of Nautilus; and that he will now be discarded as not being whole-heartedly behind nuclear power for surface ships. In any case, they say that he is not a physicist so much as a hard-driving coordinator of a specific engineering project, who has made too many enemies in the process for his survival in the Navy.
Much of this is wishful thinking by his detractors. The USN Submarine Force freely admits that, but for him, Nautilus would not be at sea today. They regard him as being more influential than any other serving officer, except perhaps the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] himself. They accept as a painful necessity his dictatorial methods. Some even explain his boorish manners and insulting conversational gambits simply as devices to make his listeners remember what he has to say.
One thing is certain: Rickover will pursue his self-appointed course regardless of the opinions of friend or foe, particularly friend. Even his bitterest enemies cannot deny his single-minded devotion to duty. Nor have they ever attributed to him ambitions for commercial or financial rewards – now or in the future. Nor can he be dismissed outright as a megalomaniac. Whilst he shuns personal publicity of any sort, he has carefully built himself a solid political lobby and the support of the most influential voices in the media and in the highest corridors of power to maintain the priorities he needs for the continuation of his nuclear programme.
In this respect he bears an uncanny resemblance to the Royal Navy’s Jacky Fisher, who became First Sea Lord in 1905 [1904] at the age of sixty-four and proceeded to ram though his revolutionary Dreadnought programme, which gave Britain the lead in high-speed, hard-hitting capital ships long before the Great War broke out. Nothing was allowed to stand in his path, even those amongst the highest in the land who mistrusted his methods and feared for sacred naval traditions being dismantled.
To further his aims, Fisher used the Press and his friends in Parliament to a degree hitherto unknown. He wrote anonymous articles in The Observer. Friendly journalists got special briefings from him. Soon the public took up his cry: ‘We want eight, and we won’t wait.’ The resemblance does not end in the two Admirals’ drive and ruthlessness, as their portraits show. But to find out what makes Hyman Rickover tick, it is necessary to start by taking account of a lifetime spent in antipathetic surroundings. In the end one has to settle for the fact that he is motivated by a love of the Service which he joined as an expedient and which has repeatedly reminded him how unwelcome he is, rather than by hope of honours, self-aggrandisement or financial reward.61
Mountbatten was due to visit the United States in October 1955 to meet his US counterpart, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Arleigh Burke. Burke and the US COMSUBLANT, Rear Admiral Fred T. Watkins, thought it would be fitting if Mountbatten were to become the first foreign officer to go to sea in Nautilus. However, when Mountbatten arrived on 27 October 1955 Rickover refused to meet him and ensured that Mountbatten was not allowed anywhere near Nautilus. Coote later wrote that an irreverent headline writer could have called the non-meeting ‘Rickie Snubs Dickie’.62
Rickover’s behaviour must be set in the context of the complex Atomic Energy Legislation and his bitter battles with the US Navy and Atomic Energy Commission. With a resolution on the legality of passing information about the US nuclear-submarine programme to the British from the Attorney General still pending, Rickover was unwilling to show Mountbatten anything. Allowing him on board Nautilus was in Rickover’s mind an unnecessary risk that could have provided valuable ammunition to his many enemies. At the time, he was at the centre of a battle between the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) and the US Navy over his possible promotion to Vice Admiral. When the promotion was refused by the US Navy promotion board, Rickover responded by waging a long and bitter struggle with the US Navy that would continue until he retired in 1982. He disregarded the normal promotions system and used his connections with the AEC and Congress, and a well-run publicity campaign (which culminated in an appearance on the cover of Time magazine), to become one of the best known officers in the Navy.
To Mountbatten, hoping to enlist American assistance with the UK nuclear programme, it appeared as if ‘the uranium curtain had been well and truly run down’.63 Admiral Burke was also deeply ‘embarrassed’ and instead offered Mountbatten a visit to the second most significant submarine in the US Navy, the USS Albacore. The USS Nautilus was essentially a conventional twin-screw submarine, with a conventional hull form, fitted with an experimental nuclear reactor. The USS Albacore was a hydrodynamic test vehicle with a single shaft and highly streamlined and distinctive teardrop hull, powered by electric batteries and capable of speeds up to 30 knots.64 According to Admiral Ignatius Galantin, who was on board during Mountbatten’s visit, ‘Mountbatten never forgot the enthusiasm and conviction with which Albacore’s young skipper described his ship and put her through her paces, the ship heeling and turning, climbing and diving steeply in a way no other ship could.’65 The visit had a profound impact on Mountbatten’s thinking about the Royal Navy’s future submarine policy.
FUTURE SUBMARINE POLICY
Prior to leaving the United States, Mountbatten told the Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Admiral Lewis Strauss, that he was ‘afraid of the consequences on the relations between the two navies if, in this process, we developed some new and possibly more efficient method and would then be unable to talk to the Americans on grounds of lack of reciprocity. He did not wish to see our paths diverge in this manner.’66 Strauss, an advocate of full cooperation, regarded the American position ‘as contrary to good sense and logic and therefore as untenable in the long run’.67 But like his colleagues he was hamstrung by legislation. Even President Eisenhower wrote to Mountbatten and advised ‘for the moment we must await favourable legislative action before anything further can be done’.68
When Mountbatten returned to the United Kingdom he accelerated the development of the British nuclear-submarine programme, in part to speed up its development, but also to show the Americans that the Royal Navy was determined to press on, with or without US assistance. Mountbatten also secured the necessary funding from the Treasury, a complex process that involved commissioning a 20-inch model of a nuclear submarine which opened up to display the inner workings for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Derick Heathcoat Amory, who came from an old naval family. Mountbatten placed the model in front of the Chancellor’s seat at a meeting of the Cabinet’s Defence Committee where Heathcoat Amory played with it throughout the discussion of earlier items on the agenda. He was fascinated and when the question of nuclear propulsion came up, he merely looked across the table and asked, ‘How much?’69 The Treasury sanctioned the development of a land-based prototype reactor as well as the hull and machinery for one submarine.
Mountbatten also ensured that the first submarine was given a highly symbolic name. The Admiralty originally intended to name its nuclear-powered submarines after former battle cruisers, starting with ‘In-’ as, like battle cruisers, nuclear submarines were regarded
as ‘ship[s] of the future’ that would ‘undoubtedly control sea communications’. Names such as Invincible and Inflexible were briefly considered, but rejected, in the case of the former because of its unfortunate sinking at the Battle of Jutland, and the latter because ‘the epithet of inflexibility is the last one that we should wish to apply to the Navy and to these new submarines in particular’.70 Indefatigable was then considered appropriate to convey ‘the essential quality of these nuclear boats’. However the Ship’s Names Committee, the body responsible for naming all Royal Navy vessels, agreed that the most suitable name for the submarine would be Dreadnought, a name that had ‘a unique attraction in that it already represents a land-mark in Naval history, associated as it is with most revolutionary war-ship design … it should be used for the first “Jet-Age” submarine.’71
The acceleration of the nuclear programme also had implications for the Royal Navy’s existing submarine policy. The constantly changing requirements, false starts and misdirection were deeply frustrating to the senior Naval Staff, such as the Controller of the Navy, Ralph Edwards, who wrote to Mountbatten in September 1955 that ‘The more I see of the way submarine matters are conducted, the more disquieted I become. Year after year we see the opinion of the submarine commanders switch 100 per cent and for reasons which I do not personally believe are valid.’72
In February 1956, as part of Mountbatten’s ‘Way Ahead’ studies into the future size, shape and role of the Royal Navy, a comprehensive review of submarine policy took place. On 2 February, senior Naval Staff assembled for a conference to define the size and shape of the Royal Navy’s submarine fleet for much of the Cold War. Mountbatten opened the conference with a warning: ‘By 1960 all submarines in the present Fleet will have become unfit for service, regardless of any modernization measures which may be taken in the meantime.’73 He explained that:
it had become clear that our present building programme [eight Porpoises building and four more to commence in 1956/57] was no longer in step with requirements. The priorities accorded to the Atomic Energy Commission had been for power stations and the bomb, but they were now pressing forward with ideas to produce our first atomic powered submarine. We must, therefore, now make up our minds on submarine requirements for the future, e.g. as to whether we need more than one type, and, if so, how many.74
Aside from nuclear propulsion, in 1955 the US Navy had deployed a submarine capable of launching cruise missiles, known as the Regulus Attack Missile (RAM). Fitted with a nuclear warhead and capable of hitting targets in the Soviet Union, Regulus was designed to complement the US Navy’s carrier-based strike capability. After tests in USS Cusk, the missiles, which featured folding wings and tail fin, subsonic jet propulsion and booster rockets that detached after launch, were housed in hangars for two missiles, which were retrofitted abaft the fin of two existing submarines, USS Tunny and USS Barbero. Larger hangars to take four missiles were fitted forward in two purpose-built submarines commissioned in 1958, USS Greyback and USS Growler. Finally, in 1960 a nuclear-powered Regulus submarine was commissioned, USS Halibut, with a forward hangar for five missiles. Launching the missiles required the submarine to surface, its crew to extract the missile from the hangar manually, place it on a launching ramp and extend its wings and tail fin before firing it at a target.75
Mountbatten wanted to know whether the Royal Navy should follow US Navy policy and build cruise missile submarines, what he called a ‘shore-strike’ submarine capable of launching medium-range airborne missiles against enemy bases. If the answer was yes, he wanted to know if the Royal Navy should standardize its weapons with the US Navy and seek to purchase Regulus to save time and development costs, and take advantage of US logistic support. He also sought answers to wider questions: could a submarine take part in the strategic offensive in war? Could the Royal Navy justify building very large and costly vessels? Would they be suitable for any other form of submarine warfare? If not, should they be built solely for such a role? There was little consensus on any of these questions and the conference simply agreed to revisit them in two to three years.76
Discussion then shifted to the role of submarines in ‘Peace’, ‘Global War’ and ‘Limited’ War. These were listed as follows:
Peace and Limited Wars:
1) To prepare for war by training and trials
2) Reconnaissance patrols off potential enemy bases in times of international tension and off hostile bases in war
3) In a limited war, reconnaissance and attack on warships in the war area
Global War:
1) Anti-Submarine Operations
2) Attacking enemy bases in order to destroy enemy submarines and their supplies
3) Attack against surface warships, in particular the Sverdlovs
4) Attack against merchant ships and supply lines.
Although the conference agreed that the primary role of the Submarine Service continued to be anti-submarine operations, FOSM argued that ‘such distinctions were dangerous’ and that ‘what was needed was not a good anti-U boat submarine or a good anti-ship submarine but a good all-rounder’.77 The Navy, he continued, should not ‘build a special type of submarine for each role’; nor should it ‘try to incorporate too many special features in one submarine to suit various roles’. Any submarine that was constructed with the primary aim of anti-submarine warfare ‘should be versatile only to the extent of being able to attack different types of ships: i.e. submarines, surface warships and merchant ships’.78
Mountbatten’s views about the design of such submarines were heavily influenced by his earlier visit to USS Albacore and he wanted to cancel the ‘Porpoise’ construction programme and switch the design teams to work on an ‘Albacore’ design. He was convinced that ‘the Russians would in all probability adopt such a type in due course and felt that the R.N. could not afford to be out of the picture’. Why, he asked, had the Royal Navy ‘not already designed such a craft?’ The Director of Naval Construction responded that British Naval Architects ‘had known for some 60 years that the ALBACORE shape performed best under water’ and that the Admiralty design departments were still ‘experimenting with the true submarine shape on a small scale’. Mountbatten argued that given that the Albacore already existed, the design was ‘sufficiently advanced’ for the Royal Navy ‘to profit by any mistakes made’. He recommended that the Navy ‘should go straight to the operational design, and save both time and money in cutting out the experimental stages’.79 He wanted to know if it was ‘possible, and within what time, either to design ourselves or alternatively to produce on U.S.N. designs, an Albacore’. Mountbatten regarded ‘this as the most urgent and important decision we have to take’.80
There was also a detailed discussion about the merits of continuing with the HTP programme. It was impossible to proceed with the HTP and nuclear programmes at the same time due to limited resources and Mountbatten warned that ‘the HTP idea would have to be dropped if it was likely to retard development of the nuclear form of propulsion’. However, FOSM warned that:
It might be fifteen years before we could get any real contribution to the fleet from the nuclear side. For the next five or six years we should have to rely on the PORPOISE, and we could not afford to wait ten more years for something to follow. We were already lagging behind both the Americans and the Russians. H.T.P. was the only form of propulsion likely to close the gap and we should think hard before allowing effort on the nuclear form to stop it.
The conference reached a number of conclusions. First, it agreed with Mountbatten’s proposal to abandon the ‘Porpoise’ programme and design two or three conventional (i.e. non-nuclear) ‘Albacore’ submarines as soon as design teams became available. These would then be followed by an improved ‘Albacore’ design powered by recycled diesel propulsion running on HTP, ‘subject to logistic and financial implications of HTP supply being acceptable and also to effort on the nuclear powered submarine design not being jeopardized’. Thirdly, to revisit the Strike
submarine proposal in two or three years to ‘see what the Americans are doing, and decide on what was feasible’ for the Royal Navy.81
COLLABORATION RESTORED?
Towards the end of January 1956, the US Attorney General, Herbert Brownell, ruled that under the 1954 US Atomic Energy Act the Eisenhower administration could legally negotiate agreements to transmit nuclear submarine propulsion to the British.82 A new agreement between Britain and the US was signed on 13 June, and on 20 June the Foreign Secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, told Parliament that it would ‘permit a broader exchange of materials in the Atomic Energy programmes of the two countries’ and ‘provide for the exchange of information concerning military package power reactors and other military reactors for the propulsion of naval vessels, aircraft and land vehicles’.83 But British hopes that the new agreement would lead to the transfer of information about nuclear submarine propulsion were quickly dashed.
On 25 June, Senator Thomas E. Murray, a member of the US Atomic Energy Commission, notified the Committee that he disapproved of the agreement because of inadequacies in British security procedures. Although the agreement took effect on 16 July, certain members of Congress protested that they had been kept in the dark by the Eisenhower administration and argued that the 1954 Atomic Energy Act did not, in fact, permit the exchange of information about nuclear propulsion with the British. The Committee insisted that President Eisenhower suspend the new agreement for up to sixty days, which Eisenhower, a minority president without a majority in either Senate or House, facing an imminent presidential election campaign, duly did.84 Congress then adjourned until 3 January 1957, leaving the prospect of any immediate resolution looking very thin. ‘Domestic politics, I am afraid, have once again put a brake on any action for the present on the Agreement to Exchange Information on Submarine Reactors,’ wrote the Admiral, British Joint Services Mission in Washington, Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Elkins, to Mountbatten.85